Outdoorsmanism… and how to teach it!

Alex is seven years old, and Ryan is nine. They are my grandsons, and that’s about all they have in common that I can see. The older boy has blonde curls, the younger one is a red-head, making me think they might share the genetics of the Scotch-Irish side of my family, from which my mother descends. But they get along fairly well, and none of my mother’s family ever did if I remember right.

I sometimes think I need to teach them about the outdoors, how to hunt and fish, track Indians and skin grizzlies. But truthfully, I don’t know where to start. Both boys are still fairly small, and sheltered to a point that they never have fallen out of a tree, or been bitten by a pet coon. I don’t even think they ever got real good and muddy. Their mother, who is my daughter, is the reason for that. Even as a little girl, she spent all her time studying, and eventually she became a doctor. And while she can tell you all about ameeba’s and hydrofilectic shock and auto-immune therapy, she hasn’t got the slightest idea how to tell a twelve-gauge from a twenty-two. She wouldn’t know a persimmon from a possum grape! Knowing that, I feel it is my duty to try to guide those little grandsons of mine toward the path of outdoorsmanism.

So I snuck them away from home just this past weekend by telling her we were going to pick up walnuts. It wasn’t a lie… we did for awhile. We must have filled up a whole five-gallon bucket! And then I brought out the .22 rifle for a little target practice. It scared Alex half to death and Ryan, biting his fingernails, asked if he could go play on the computer.  I gave them the old talk about how any Dablemont worth his salt had kilt his first squirrel before he was ten years old, and how if a man meant to be self-sufficient he had to know how to bring home his own supper, just in case some day the world is taken over by left-wing liberals, hamburger soars to 20 dollars a pound, and McDonalds doesn’t have anything but a vegetarian menu.

We made a target out of a cardboard box by drawing a squirrel on it. I made the squirrel look a little too realistic, so they both felt sorry for the squirrel. They preferred to shoot at a bullseye target so I drew one of those too. And then we talked about safety, and how a .22 rifle works and how there is no recoil. Recoil is what had Alex worried. That little boy has watched way to dam-much TV! Then he wanted ear-plugs, because his mama had already told him about how loud noises can cause hearing loss. I said “heck Alex, this ain’t no darned artillery range!” And then he puckered up and so I went in and found a couple of pairs of old ear plugs.

“Do you want to shoot first Ryan?” I asked.

“HUH”? he said. 

“Take those darned earplugs out until we get ready to shoot.” I said.  They both looked at me and said “HUH?” in unison.

To make a long story short, they are both too short-armed to hold my Ruger .22 properly, and they missed the target badly. Alex ran down to look at where he hit, and started to cry when he couldn’t find a hole anywhere in that 3-foot by 3-foot box. His grandmother came out and made me quit yelling at him, and held him on her lap and tried to explain that even grandpa had missed when he was a little boy. (Frankly I don’t remember missing anything quite that badly.)

So I went down to rearrange the box against the stump and put a hole in the bullseye with the point of a bullet I had in my pocket, and we let Alex shoot again. He missed most of the back yard, but that hole he found in the target made him happy. He thought he done it. Ryan did a little better, he hit the box twice, not more than two feet from the bullseye. Then I showed them a little bit about form… how you bend forward at the waist, you close one eye, you hold the stock firmly against the shoulder and squeeze the trigger gently. I drilled that squirrel right in the eye I had drawn in with a black magic marker, and Alex cried again because I hit the squirrel.

I got out a little Stevens-Marksman rifle I own, a tiny little .22 made a hundred and five years ago. It is a very small and light hammer-gun, and it fit them better. Both boys shot it and missed the target a lot less than before. Alex didn’t cry this time, and so as a reward we went out under a big white oak to pretend we were hunting squirrels and see how we would go about doing it when we did actually go squirrel hunting. We took the rifle, unloaded. Alex sat there peering into the branches and got all excited when he thought he saw one.

So sometime this fall, we are going to go hunt squirrels. The boys won’t shoot of course. They’ll tag along, and I will kill a squirrel and show them how to skin and clean one, and I am sure Alex will cry again. But he has to learn that squirrels are not pets and they are evil and must be eaten or they will eat little bird’s eggs in the spring and we won’t have any bluebirds and goldfinches or cardinals.

Then eventually, as they grow older, I will have to teach him that rabbits and turkeys are evil too. But that is a long way down the line. The way my daughter is raising these two little boys, they may not shoot their first deer until they are 40. Then and only then, can I brag about how good I taught ‘em.

Please make plans to join me down at Bull Shoals Dam on Saturday, October 22. I will be there finishing a pair of wooden johnboats, giving away magazines and signing and selling my books. And there will be swap-meet folks joining me with hand-made fishing lures, hand-made turkey calls, hand-made fishing rods, antique outboard motors, old outdoor magazines, and all sorts of outdoor stuff of interest, probably 20 or so tables filled with outdoor items, many of them antiques.

We are doing this in conjunction with an annual event the Arkansas State Parks people put on called a Dutch Oven Cook-Off, in which a number of folks are cooking all sorts of things in Dutch ovens. You can sample the cooking, and learn how to do it yourself. It will all take place on the east end of Bull Shoals lake, at a big park pavilion nestled in huge oak trees overlooking Bull Shoals Lake. On the west end of the dam, there is a huge visitor center you will want to see, and I have been telling folks that since it will be right in the middle of the brightest of the fall colors, you ought to think about staying a couple of days and seeing everything in the area. Bull Shoals is back to normal, and there’s good fishing to be found there. Below the dam, the White River is full of rainbow trout, and you might think of hiring a guide for a half-day to take you trout fishing.

But I recommend that you get down into the National Forest south of Mountain Home, and see that country where Sylamore Creek flows, where Blanchard Springs Caverns are found. Take a tour of those caverns… spectacular! You might even want to go see the Buffalo River if you have never been there, float it if you have an extra day. Anyhow, come by and visit with us on October 22, and enjoy yourself at this big cook off and swap meet and johnboat building. I have hundreds of old outdoor magazines of all types I will be giving away that day to whomever wants them. The State Park number is 870-445-3629 if you need more info.

My website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com. E-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net, or write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo.65613